Creative Project

I am dealing with storytelling, and my paper discusses the vitality of storytelling and the vitality of the parts of storytelling (ie. the listener, the storyteller, the story itself).  It also discusses how story inspires awe, and why that's important.  My overall effort isn't to just say that story inspires awe, but to let people have a take away--to grow in their understanding about story's importance and to feel a renewed desire to become invested in stories and seek out/share quality ones.

My father passed away when I was little. He left my Uncle Sam with a list of books he wanted him to read.  He also made little annotations next to each recommendation explaining what the book would do for him and why it was worth reading.  I want to do a creative project that really gets people invested in the importance of stories, and inspires them to share these stories with others.

What I would like to do is to establish a venue (be it a blog, a pinterest board, a facebook page, a google doc, whatever...preferably something online so it is accessible to everyone) that invites people to write up a letter-like something to their posterity or someone they care about containing a list of stories (not just books but movies, plays, etc) that they want their posterity to experience.  Every item would contain a short annotation like the ones my dad included. I might even make creative suggestions, like that the list be a yearly check-list (e.g. read such and such book when you turn 16) as a way of further engaging potential receivers of these lists.

I do not think it would be difficult to acquire a group together that would enjoy taking part in this project because, frankly, people love to talk about themselves and to give their own suggestions.  I think it would be a lot of fun, it's something I'm certainly excited about, and I think it would actually inspire people to increase their exposure to stories so they can create a quality list.

My dad's list and an example of his annotations: